Tag: Motivation

I watched a motivational video by Steve Harvey the other day and it made me think a lot about fandom. In his video he talked about being a fan and how dedicated fans are. Fans of sports teams, sports figures, celebrity actors and actresses and of course fans of musicians. He put a spotlight on just how crazy fandom can be sometimes and how loyal people seem to become to people that they have never even met, probably will never meet, and to organizations that, when you truly sit and think about it, have done nothing to benefit their day to day life on a small or grand scale. He posed the question of why it is that people can be such huge fans of these unknown people and these organizations that only look out for themselves but don’t have that same kind of fandom for God.

It was a really good question and one I had never even thought of before. I have my share of things that I am a fan for as well, I’m no different than anyone else in that way. However, I actually do feel like in these more recent years as I have been on this spiritual journey and strengthening my relationship with God, that I have become an even bigger fan of God than I could ever be of some celebrity that I’ve never met or any organization. There is far too much good that God has done in my life for me to not be a fan of HIS.

In this time where we are all forced to take a step back and focus on the things that are really important to us it makes us realize what truly matters and the things and/or people that we should really be pouring our energy into. We really need to be mindful of what we consume and who we give our devotion to. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have our indulgences or certain celebrities that we admire or take cues from. The whole inspiration for this post came from a celebrity I greatly admire and who I am a fan of. However, I do believe that you need to pay attention to what draws you in as a fan.

Watch what you are emulating and who you are choosing to be a fan of and then ask yourself is being a fan of this person going to get me through the stressful times as much as you have convinced yourself that they help you get though the good ones. I have my favorite celebrity actors and actresses, and musicians, and of course authors but I’ve never really been one to go nuts over any particular celebrity (except Tyler Perry—if I ever get the chance to meet him I just might loose my cool lol). I think that Steve Harvey’s motivational video put into even more perspective for me how much I need to stay vigilant about who fits the model of who I want to be a fan of and more importantly of just how big a fan I am of God’s and I’m okay with that. Until next time… #BeVigilant #BeMindful #BeinFaith

So normally I would have some thought provoking things to say, like I try to at the start of every week to not only motivate myself but hopefully motivate all of you who read my blog as well. However, today is not going to be one of those days. If I’m being honest, because I try to be as authentic as possible here with you guys, the last couple of weeks have been emotionally and mentally draining and I am not feeling extremely motivated today. So why am I posting today anyway then? Simply put, I made a promise to myself that I would do better at making a habit of writing daily this year.

What that means is that I don’t just want to not write at all because I’m feeling depressed or because I’m feeling mentally exhausted (like the world is about to crumble in on me) because that’s what I’ve done in previous years and then I become absent and then my writing, the one thing that I love more than almost anything (second only to my daughter), becomes non-existent. At that point the only habit that I would have created was that of NOT writing and then I end up with all these ideas stored up in my head with nothing to show for it. They say it takes thirty days to form a habit and this past November when I did NaNoWriMo again after not doing it for a while, I struck up that habit again and I fell even more in love with writing (if that was even possible). After all isn’t that what NaNoWriMo is all about, creating a way for writers who struggle to get in the habit of making writing a daily thing.

So while I may be feeling a little out of sorts today and I am struggling to even find words to write this, I knew that I had to because writing is like breathing for me. I can’t break this habit again because I’ve discovered when I let the days slip by without getting any words down, I become more and more out of sorts and unmotivated, and not like myself and that is not going to get me anywhere. It certainly isn’t going to help get the three books I plan to self-publish this year finished. So that’s all I have for you today and I’m sorry that I couldn’t be more for you but I did my best I just have to hope that it’s enough. Until next time… #BeMindful #BeYou

I was thinking the other day about how much energy it takes to pretend everything is going okay. Often times when things have hit a rough patch and start to crumble we want to put on a brave face for the rest of the world and we don’t want to really portray to those close to us that we don’t have it all together. We sugarcoat things sometimes and put a happy infliction in our voices to sound upbeat even when all we really want to do is scream out in frustration from the way that things are in reality falling apart.

I told my friend the other day that this year I want to really work on not pretending with people, at least those closest to me. That doesn’t mean I want to bog them down with the issues that I may be having but just that I don’t want to place the enormous amount of energy it takes to smile when I want to cry, or to come up with a story about how good things are going when in reality they are far from being good. I’m realizing that it is okay to not be okay.

Sometimes we have to let things fall apart, acknowledge that things need to change, and let the façade of perfection go in order to really build things back up again so that we can get things back on track. I think that we worry that people will judge us or think differently of us if we don’t have all of our ducks in a row and if we seem to show cracks in our exterior walls but the real question is should we really be worried about what everyone else thinks about us. If we are putting on a show for everyone else and acting as if nothing is wrong then are the people we are putting on the show for actually getting to see and know the “REAL” us?

I believe that if we start focusing our energy on being authentic and being truthful about our reality then not only will it be healing for us but perhaps it could help others as well who feel like they have to pretend for the rest of the world. Of course that doesn’t mean that you should go around broadcasting all of your issues to anyone who will listen but we can stop putting up the pretense that things are good when they’re not. We can be honest and say that while things can be better that you are blessed and that you will get through it because it takes so much energy to pretend to be okay. Let’s agree that in 2020 we will be honest, not just with the people around us but also with ourselves. Let’s give our energy to building things back up again and not on pretending that we’re not really falling apart! Until next time… #BeHonest #BeAuthentic #BeVulnerable

We’re almost halfway there!!! So I hope everyone is having a productive NaNoWriMo experience. I know that it gets daunting to try and write so many words in what seems like such a short time but the important thing that I have found that doing NaNoWriMo helps with is creating the habitual routine of sitting down in your chair (or floor or couch, wherever you choose to write) and writing every single day.

This is especially helpful for those of us who had found ourselves in a rut or blocked or even just lacking in sheer motivation. It gets us back in the mood to really produce good content again and for me it has reenergized me and gotten me excited, not just about writing the current story that I am working on for NaNoWriMo but it has me excited for creating period, in terms of writing my blog posts, or in terms of thinking of ideas on how to best structure the podcast I will be starting in January of 2020. It even has me thinking (perhaps foolishly) that I might actually want to give writing for television a shot and go for it because I’ve always wanted to write two specific things, novels and television shows, but I’ve just always talked myself out of trying to write for TV because I had convinced myself I wasn’t really good enough to do that (which is crazy given the fact that I can predict an entire show and how it’s going to go in the first two minutes of the show most of the time lol).

Now I won’t be long because I have a story to get back to and hopefully you do too. I just stopped in to check in on you and to let you know that there are going to be videos to help get you through the rest of NaNoWriMo and hopefully to help keep you motivated past that point over on my online magazine, Write 2 Be Magazine, so when you get some time go check out the specific writing videos to help you in your writing journey! I’ll check back again near the end of the stretch and of course my normal blog posts will appear weekly. Until next time… #BeConsistent #BeMotivated

For as long as I can remember I have always been a worrier. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment in time or the day in which I went from a child without a care in the world to one who, even if I didn’t know the word to describe the feeling at the time, filled up on the inside with the worry that I innately carried with me into my adulthood. It could’ve been something I had seen or witnessed and buried in my subconscious so I can not now remember, or it could be one of the many times that I had worried if I was going to get hit by my mother simply for existing that day. Whatever moment it was that turned me into a person who would carry worry into my everyday habits, the habitual nature had been developed long before I knew how the power of Faith truly worked.

I recently read an article written by a friend that revisited the popular children’s Sunday school song In His Hands. The song tells us that God has the whole world in his hand, meaning every last one of us can rest in the palm of his hands. Every battle we face, every test that we fail, every victory that we win, all rest in his hands. Now as a child I did not understand the true meaning and power behind the words in that song but having lived a little and experienced a lot I get more than ever the meaning behind those words.

I have certainly been tested this last year and the funny thing to me is that even in this extremely difficult time that I am having I have never had more Faith in God and his power than I do right at this very moment. I say it’s funny because as I pointed out earlier, I am a worrier by nature and have been since I was a child so I literally worry about nearly everything. Now I’m not saying that my nature of worry has completely gone away because I’m still human, but my faith is unwavering and ever strengthening.

No matter what we face in this world, whatever figurative rocks are being thrown at you, worrying about it is not going to change the outcome. Even if we fall flat on our faces, we are still falling into the loving hands of God’s protection. We are still going to be nurtured by his unconditional love and he will still see us through whatever the battle is that we are being tested by. Not only will he see us through it but he will make us stronger for having fought that battle.

Sometimes I know that it would be nice to be able to see what the outcome is going to be, maybe get a little hint that everything will be okay, but as someone very wise recently told me, it’s not for me to see. God’s got me and that is essentially all that I really need to know. So when you feel antsy and you start to feel that worry creep up inside of you and you start to get impatient with the not knowing where things are headed, just keep in mind that God’s got you and no matter what you’re in HIS hands. Until next time… #BeinFaith #BeEmpowred

So I discovered something important for my future writing success in these first few days of NaNo! Writing sprints are super effective. I know that writing sprints are nothing new but I was resistant to trying them because that hadn’t been the way I had ever written before and I just thought why can’t I just sit down and write non-stop until the words are done for the day. I mean most days I’ve never had an issue getting words down but I can tend to get stalled a bit at times and then frustration sets in. So I thought that this NaNoWriMo I would give writing sprints a try.

I have been watching a lot of writing videos lately and live streams so I just thought why not. So that’s what I’ve been doing differently this NaNoWriMo and I have been very pleasantly surprised at just how helpful doing these sprints are. They keep me focused, they keep me on track, and they have boosted my creativity. So if you’re looking for something new to try to liven up your writing sessions and maybe your old way of doing your sessions is leaving you stalled a bit, try doing writing sprints. Now you can do them in whatever increments work for you. Some do ten minutes, some do fifteen or even thirty, but I have found that twenty minute sprints seem to work for me. So hopefully you are doing well in your writing so far and you will give writing sprints a try but for now I must go back to write! I’ll include a list of a few AuthorTubers that have some live stream writing sessions with writing sprints so you can give them a try as well.

I was talking to someone the other night about the battles that we face and how sometimes I feel like I just want to throw in the towel, throw my hands up, and say to hell with everything. Now of course logically, I’m not going to do that because, shit, I’ve got goals and no matter how much I want to give up sometimes I have not ever been, nor will I ever be a quitter. When I get knocked down I may sulk a little bit, and I may even wallow slightly longer than is acceptable, but I do eventually get back up and prepare myself once again for the next battle. Now in the conversation that I was having the other day we were talking about the saying that says God gives the toughest battles to his strongest soldiers and we both reveled in the realization that God must have some really big things in store for us because we have been going through some tough battles lately.

This year has been a nightmare and I have been struggling. I’m in such a financial free fall right now and I am trying to maintain a positive outlook but it is hard. I came dangerously close to eviction the other day and while I have lined up a couple of clients for the next few weeks it’s still not going to be enough to stabilize things just yet and I am sinking. I was supposed to have some books out by now but my self-publishing efforts, as you might imagine given my current financial state, have kind of fallen to the back burner because I have to focus on keeping a roof over me and my daughter’s head. I do have a few things lined up so there is some comfort in that but it’s not enough to stabilize things just yet.

Okay I started going off course there for a moment. The point of this post was to highlight something I got when I watched a sermon from Bishop TD Jakes about fighting your Goliath’s (battles), and that is that no matter what the battle is that you might be facing right now, you should not allow it to discourage you. Your battle was not given to you to discourage you. It was given to you to empower you. Your battle was given to you to reveal who you really are, who you truly are and all of the power that you have inside of you, and all of the purpose that you have been given.

If you are feeling low at the moment, if your battle is getting too hard for you to fight, know that even if you are down you are not out. God is with you. God has already given you the strength to handle whatever it is that comes your way. You only need to believe in yourself and in the power that God has given you within. Until next time… #BeEmpowered #BeVictorious